Of Colossal Import

“Subhūti, it is as if there were a person with a body as large as Mt. Sumeru. What do you think? Would this body not be huge?”

“Extremely huge, Blessed One. And why? The Buddha teaches us that it is not a body. Hence it is called a huge body”

“Subhūti, if each of the sands in the Ganges River contained its own Ganges River, would not the number of sands contained in all those Ganges rivers be great?”

Subhūti said, “Extremely great, World Honored One. If the number of even the Ganges rivers were countless, how much more so its grains of sand?”

“Subhūti, now I am going to tell you a truth. If a good son or good daughter filled three thousand galaxies with the seven jewels equal to the number of grains of sand in all those Ganges rivers and gave them away charitably, would his or her merit not be great?”

“Extremely great, Blessed One.”

The Buddha said to Subhūti: “If a good son or good daughter is able to memorize four lines of verse from this sūtra and teach them to others, his or her merit will be far greater.”

with a body as large as Mt. Sumeru: in Buddhist Cosmology, Sumeru is of Titanic proportions and is the “axis mundi” that contains all the revolving energies of the Saha-realm. Mt. Kailash in Western Tibet is designated as the Spiritual-Sumeru-Supreme. Essentially, this section reiterates the profound significance of reciting verses from the Diamond Sutra; indeed, this noble-action far outweighs any other worldly merit. If someone were empowered to memorize and recite the entire Diamond Sutra, one would exhibit the subtlest of all Mind-awareness, thus being At-One with the Tathatic-Spirit.